


Am I true in my faith or just a deceiver?

by talk_less_smilemore



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: F/F, F/M, Maybe angsty, Not Canon Compliant, Religion, Swearing, mentions of abuse, that's what i was going for but i don't know if it came out that way lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-16 06:56:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21032111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talk_less_smilemore/pseuds/talk_less_smilemore
Summary: For Mallory_Clayborne for the SP Fic Challenge 2019! A short fic about China (and Bliss) growing up in the strictly religious community of the Faceless.She remembers her father as he cleared up all of her mother's broken china in a room that seemed just a little bittoodark, just a little bittoocold.





	Am I true in my faith or just a deceiver?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mallory_Clayborne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mallory_Clayborne/gifts).

Eleanor Blanc picked her name when she was five years old.

"It's not safe," She remembers her father saying as he cleared up all of her mother's broken china in a room that seemed just a little bit _too_ dark, just a little bit _too_ cold. "Our Gods, Eleanor, they came for your mother. They'll come back for you, too, if you aren't careful."

She didn't know much about the Church, then, or its beliefs, but she remembers wondering why the very beings they worshipped came for her mother when they were supposed to be protecting them all. She remembers thinking that maybe, if these gods came because they knew her mother was normal - married without magic in a hidden society - then they might know Eleanor was thinking about them coming to get her as well, and they might remember where she lives, and they might come for her because she skipped Church last week and they might not feel like she was punished enough for it.

She was punished very much.

So China Sorrows picks her name because her father is worried, and her name lends her power. Maybe she isn't as strong as Bliss, or as cunning as her father, but she feels somewhat safe. She's protected, because of her mother's death, and because of her mother's broken china.

For a while, she goes through the movements: the Church educates her, and she reads the Gospel of the Faceless. The Church helps her choose a discipline, and she protects it with sigils and charms. The Church tells her she is nothing and the Gods are everything, and China Sorrows believes it with her whole heart and soul.

"Three is the unholy number." Her grandmother told her once. "Many people think it's six, but it's three. You remember that, El."

China does remember that, because it had been the last time she'd ever seen her grandmother. She hadn't been old or frail or anything - they'd just killed her as a sacrifice to the Faceless Ones. But it bothers her that she doesn't know why three is an unholy number, and she hasn't ever had the courage to ask about that kind of superstition in case she becomes the next sacrifice.

But lo and behold, three is the number of sigils on her doormat, and three is the number of Gospels her father owned, and three is the number of times she tried to kill Bliss before he deserted the Church and disgraced himself.

"The Gods will come for him soon enough," Her father grunts as he opens the Gospel and finds a passage about how particularly disgusting humans are. "He'll be sorry, then. But he won't be forgiven."

It is three weeks before Bliss sends her a lovely letter full of poison, and another three before China replies with a sigil she'd drawn herself that should blow his face off. Maybe three is her lucky number. Maybe _she's_ unholy.

The night that China Sorrows kisses Eliza Scorn is the night she falls instantly and helplessly in love. It is also the night Eliza Scorn tries to kill her, and the night that China Sorrows makes her beauty her weapon.

"It isn't right," Scorn had said, "You forsaking the Church like this. Our Gods wouldn't have us together. You know I am forbidden from mortal men."

"I'm a woman."

"You are a silly child. I am forbidden. Our Gods would not have us together."

_Well I would have us together, you silly old hag,_ China thinks, but she keeps her mouth shut and lets her punishment come. This is the night she stops believing, really believing, in the Gospel. She takes a profound interest in the war, instead, but not because of its politics: because of the man in the movement.

Time passes in odd little stretches and bunches before anything more happens. She doesn't meet Skulduggery Pleasant until she is the head of the Diablerie and he is leading the resistance. The Gods do not come for Bliss, which is extremely disappointing, and instead, he tries to kill China twice more, coming to a grand total of three. It is a while before she finally leaves the Church, but it is tougher than that to forget the influence of Gods that have been niggling at the back of her mind since she was five years old and they took her mother.

China wraps herself up in her collections instead. Books, artefacts, sometimes (but rarely) people. She has a little following of her own: men and women who have plummeted for her charm, her stunning dresses, her expensive collections. Her beautiful, beautiful eyes. People are more complicated than they seem, but they are far too easy to manipulate if one knows what one wants. None of them are quite like Eliza Scorn, but she's meant to be married to her Gods, and she won't sacrifice her career and her religion for a fling with a girl three years younger than her.

China respects that.

She remembers years spent kneeling next to Bliss on a cold stone floor in solemn silence, years spent memorizing passages about the worthlessness of the human race, years spent with her father learning about how her own power is nothing compared to the legendary ones. Slowly but surely, walls build, cold and harsh and apathetic, to keep that knowledge contained in its own separate palace. No, wait: it doesn't deserve a palace. It deserves what might be something closer to a run-down shed, and once she's spent fifteen minutes debating on a suitable design for said shed, China fills it to the brink with useless knowledge. Then she builds another one next to it and repeats the process, except this one is a prettier shade of pink.

When China Sorrows is asked to - and willingly kills - Skulduggery Pleasant's wife, she is, above all else, jealous. She has lost too much for this woman to be happy, with their awful romance and terrible way of looking at each other and their fucking _child,_ he's gone and had a child when China has had to sacrifice everything for a religion she doesn't even believe in anymore. China can have beauty and money and collections but she can't have _that_ because of the Church and the Gospel and a forbidden love that was cut short before it even began.

She doesn't know how many of her shabby little sheds Eleanor Blanc has torn down until she is on her knees praying to a forgotten deity for forgiveness.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading - please do leave a comment!


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